which you apprehended might be very inconvenient to you for some time to come; and having learned also from Lady Hesketh the same unwelcome intelligence, in terms still more alarming than those in which you related the accident yourself, I cannot but be anxious, as well as my cousin, to know the present state of it; and shall truly rejoice to hear hostile competitors. Pray forgive its partial defects for its affectionate sincerity. From my ignorance of your address, I send this to your bookseller's by a person commissioned to place my name in the list of your subscribers; and let me add, if you ever wish to form a new collection of names for any similar purpose, I entreat you to honour me so far as to rank mine, of your own accord, among those of your sincerest friends. Adieu!

SONNET

TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ.

On hearing that our names had been idly mentioned in a newspaper, as competitors in a Life of Milton.

Cowper! delight of all who justly prize

The splendid magic of a strain divine,

That sweetly tempts th' enlighten'd soul to rise,
As sunbeams lure an eagle to the skies.

Poet! to whom I feel my heart incline
As to a friend endear'd by virtue's ties ;

Ne'er shall my name in pride's contentious line
With hostile emulation cope with thine!
No, let us meet, with kind fraternal aim,
Where Milton's shrine invites a votive throng.
With thee I share a passion for his fame,
His zeal for truth, his scorn of venal blame :
But thou hast rarer gifts,-to thee belong
His harp of highest tone, his sanctity of song.

that it is in a state of recovery. Give us a line of information on this subject, as soon as you can conveniently, and you will much oblige us.

I write by morning candle-light; my literary business obliging me to be an early riser. Homer demands me finished, indeed, but the alterations not transcribed; a work to which I am now hastening as fast as possible. The transcript ended, which is likely to amount to a good sizeable volume, I must write a new preface; and then farewell to Homer for ever! And if the remainder of my days be a little gilded with the profits of this long and laborious work, I shall not regret the time that I have bestowed on it.

I remain, my dear friend,
Affectionately yours,

W. C.

Can you give us any news of Lord Howe's Armada; concerning which we may inquire, as our forefathers did of the Spanish," an in cœlum sublata sit, an in Tartarum depressa?” *

* Lord Howe was at this time in pursuit of the French fleet, and absent six weeks, during which the public received no intelligence of his movements. His lordship at length returned, having only seen the enemy, but without having been able to overtake and bring them to action. Though this furnished no argument against him, but rather showed the terror that he inspired, yet some of the wits of the day wrote the following jeu d'esprit on the occasion.

When Cæsar triumph'd o'er his Gallic foes,
Three words concise,† his gallant acts disclose;

+ Veni, vidi, vici. I came, I saw, I conquered.

The reader may now be anxious to learn some particulars of the projected poem, which has been repeatedly mentioned under the title of The Four Ages; a poem to which the mind of Cowper looked eagerly forward, as to a new and highly promising field for his excursive fancy. The idea had been suggested to him in the year 1791, by his clerical neighbour, Mr. Buchanan, of Ravenstone, a small sequestered village within the distance of an easy walk from Weston. This gentleman, who had occasionally enjoyed the gratification of visiting Cowper, suggested to him, with a becoming diffidence, the project of a new poem on the four distinct periods of life-infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. He imparted his ideas to the poet by a letter, in which he observed, with equal modesty and truth, that Cowper was particularly qualified to relish, and to do justice to the subject; a subject which he supposed not hitherto treated expressly, as its importance deserved, by any poet ancient or modern.

Mr. Buchanan added to this letter a brief sketch of contents for the projected composition. This hasty sketch he enlarged, at the request of Cowper. How the poet appreciated the suggestion will appear from the following billet.

But Howe more brief comprises his in one,
And vidi tells us all that he has done.

Lord Howe subsequently proved his claim to the whole of this celebrated dispatch of Cæsar, by the great victory which he gained off Ushant over the French fleet, June 1, 1794; a victory which forms one of the brightest triumphs of the British navy.

TO THE REV. MR. BUCHANAN.

Weston, May 11, 1793. My dear Sir-You have sent me a beautiful poem, wanting nothing but metre. I would to heaven that you would give it that requisite yourself; for he who could make the sketch, cannot but be well qualified to finish. But if you will not, I will; provided always nevertheless, that God gives me ability, for it will require no common share to do justice to your conceptions.

I am much yours,

W.C.

Your little messenger vanished before I could catch him.

This work, in his first conception of it, was greatly endeared to him, but he soon entertained an apprehension that he should never accomplish it. Writing to his friend of St. Paul's in 1793, the poet said "The Four Ages is a subject that delights me when I think of it; but I am ready to fear, that all my ages will be exhausted before I shall be at leisure to write upon it."

A fragment is all that he has left, for which we refer the reader to the Poems. In his happier days, it would have been expanded in a manner more commensurate with the copiousness of the subject, and the poetical powers of the author.

It may be interesting to add, that a modern poem

on the Four Ages of Man was written by M.Werthmuller, a citizen of Zurich, and translated into Latin verse, by Dr. Olstrochi, librarian to the Ambrosian library at Milan. This performance gave rise to another German poem on the Four Ages of Woman, by M. Zacharie, professor of poetry at Brunswick.

The increasing infirmities of Cowper's aged companion, Mrs. Unwin, his filial solicitude to alleviate her sufferings, and the gathering clouds of deeper despondency that began to settle on his mind, in the first month of the year 1794, not only rendered it impossible for him to advance in any great origi. nal performance, but, to use his own expressive words, in the close of his correspondence with his highly-valued friend, Mr. Rose, made all composition either of poetry or prose impracticable. Writing to that friend in January 1794, he says, "I have just ability enough to transcribe, which is all that I have to do at present: God knows that I write, at this moment, under the pressure of sadness not to be described."

It was a spectacle that might awaken compassion in the sternest of human characters, to see the health, the comfort, and the little fortune of a man, so distinguished by intellectual endowments, and by moral excellence, perishing most deplorably. A sight so affecting made many friends of Cowper solicitous and importunate that his declining life should be honourably protected by public munifiMen of all parties agreed that a pension might be granted to an author of his acknowledged merit, with graceful propriety.

cence.